


Metallurgy

by aethylas



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Character Study, Denial, During Canon, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Episode Tag, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, Spoilers, Trust Issues, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22818697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aethylas/pseuds/aethylas
Summary: Flint studies Silver. Silver studies Flint. These are their pieces of eight.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 70





	1. Flint

**Author's Note:**

> Flint: I’m unknowable!! I’m unknowable!!  
> Silver: you wish you were unknowable!!!
> 
> Or: I arrived in Black Sails fandom three years too late, wished to explore some of the unspoken feelings that [‘exist in the space that people don’t even know about themselves’](https://www.tvinsider.com/152185/black-sails-series-finale-creators-interview/), and give Flint and Silver a different ending.

I. IRON

When he had first looked at Thomas Hamilton, he had seen the sun. He’d been struck with warmth, bathed in the radiant kindness of his smile.

Of course, he did not know it as love then, but it was every inch the feeling described by Shakespeare and his ilk. Thomas was a clear blue sky; he brought calm to Flint’s sails, a song to his mind, and an inevitable happiness to his heart. He was the unlimited hope for the future, the kind which could usually only be brought about by immense wealth. Thomas was Flint’s Urca gold, his promise glowing brightly in the dark.

Flint forever will be grateful for Thomas. For Thomas showing him what love truly is, what _treasure_ truly is. Gates sometimes accuses him of looking down on the other men, on the rest of his crew, and Flint cannot deny the truth of that observation. How can he see the other men as his equal, when he fights for the honour of Thomas’ memory, and they only fight for more rum, whores, and food for their bellies? Coin is just a means to an end, and there are barely any on Nassau who have vision beyond themselves.

Certainly, the idiot currently pretending to be a cook isn’t thinking further than his own survival. At least he had the intelligence to make sure Flint didn’t kill him immediately, though his untrustworthy face has him on borrowed time. If the scoundrel wants to live, he’ll have to flee the _Walrus_ soon. A man like him is not made for life of piracy, living among a brotherhood of crewmen. He is too selfish, and both too clever _and_ too stupid. If Flint doesn’t kill him, his crew will. Men like John Silver were not made for the sea. His clean, unstained undershirt will rust with blood before the year is through.

* * *

II. TIN

Silver is infuriating.

Flint prides himself on reading men; on knowing what they want, how they’ll act, who they’ll cast their votes with. But Silver is the first man that has truly confounded his expectations – and does so with a knowing smile, almost teasing. A smile just for Flint that says, with carefully feigned modesty, _you didn’t expect I could do this, did you?_

Flint does not think Gates’ absence has unsettled him half so much as this new demon in his life. No, not a demon – the Devil himself. He offers help to Flint with reason and pragmatism as his defence, yet Flint feels as though he has signed a contract on his soul. There is something deeply disconcerting about depending on a man whose course Flint has failed to map correctly.

Silver desperately wants to be liked, to have approval, to be loved so that he will never fear being cast out. Before, Flint would have said that someone like Silver would be seen for the fake he is, that his disingenuous ease and amiability could never stand up to the careful scrutiny of crewmen like Billy Bones. But now – now, Flint has no idea what Silver is or isn’t capable of. His is even unsure of what Silver really wants.

It occurs to Flint then that perhaps only _he_ sees Silver’s good humour as a mask hiding something more sinister. Perhaps he is wrong, and the man is truly just a charming, harmless rogue with a knack for pleasing Lady Luck.

Worryingly, he cannot discern the answer. It seems Silver is uniquely impervious to Flint’s corrosive gaze.

* * *

III. COPPER

Every night, Flint clenches his fists until his fingernails claw into his skin and dig small, bleeding cuts into his palms. Yet Silver is the one whom the crew pity, whom they console and embrace and sing songs of good cheer to. Silver only lost a leg at Charles Town – Flint lost what remained of his heart.

So, when Silver starts to develop a question in his tone, a look of apprehension upon his face, Flint grows increasingly impatient. Whether not Silver’s newfound hesitance around him is an act, he doesn’t care; Silver is a thorn in his side trying to constrain the monster in Flint that wants to destroy the world. That _could_ destroy the world, perhaps, if only Silver would let him. Silver speaks to him like he’s taming a wild horse, and Flint bares his teeth and snaps at Silver. If Silver thinks that he will mount Flint and emerge triumphant to the crew, Alexander with Bucephalus in rein – well. He has another thing coming.

The problem with being endlessly angry is that Flint is trapped on a ship, and unfortunately the tides and winds dictate his movements. They cannot spend every day raiding towns, and nor can they do so in a predictable fashion – they would get caught. So Flint bottles his anger, and digs his nails further and further into his skin. And Silver appears in his cabin day after day and tests him, as though he wants to unstopper the bottle and let the black storm of Flint’s soul drown him.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Silver asks one day, frowning up at him while his finger taps pensively on the map Flint has laid out on his desk.

 _What does it matter if it doesn’t_ , Flint thinks.

“Of course it will work. You’re asking how many men might die in the working of it.”

“You know,” Silver says delicately, “I imagine those men also have people they love.”

Flint knows enough of Silver now to see the real meaning underneath his words. Not ‘ _those men deserve a better plan_ ’, but ‘ _your pain isn’t as special as you think it is, and your self-centred rage is going to get us killed._ ’

Flint wonders idly if Silver has ever been in love. He imagines Silver as one of two extremes – beloved by everyone, and equally free with his love in return, dipping shallowly in and out of it like a hand skimming across waves. Or – and this is the one he fears – the type of madman that operated without emotion, faking love and warmth as needed and never truly feeling any of it.

He still cannot parse the man. If he’s not careful, Silver might catch him by surprise. Not to any drastic end, certainly, but enough to cause a nuisance to Flint. An attempted mutiny, perhaps.

“Captain?” Silver asks, when Flint has been silent for too long.

“I don’t have an answer that you would find diplomatic,” Flint replies, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. He won’t give Silver what he wants – is angry that Silver knows enough of him to read his rage for what it is. Hurt and vengeance, yes, but also prideful righteousness. To hold the truth is a dangerous thing, and Silver increasingly holds the power to pronounce Flint a man too compromised by the loss of his lover to continue his captaincy. He could throw Flint from the crew’s grace with a sentence or two, from which he might never fully recover. But he is cowed by Flint, as they all are–

Or so Flint thinks, and then it is the day that Silver asks Flint to step aside, dares to speak Miranda’s name, and questions his authority. Suggests that he, Silver, should be the one to make decisions. Comes after Flint with the oily words of a lawyer, and edges Flint into a corner.

Most damningly of all, he attempts to read Flint’s soul in the same way that Flint has tried to read his - and Silver is more successful at it.

If he thinks Flint will fall in line for his silky words like the others, he is mistaken. But Flint, too, has been mistaken – mistaken to judge Silver for one who still feared him. Flint can still outwit Silver, but Silver has powers that grow every day. He can channel the crew’s sentiments and energy in any way he chooses. He can swim alongside providence with an ease Flint cannot manage. He is rapidly becoming the David to Flint’s Goliath, and turning from brittle shell to hardened steel as he goes.

Flint has underestimated him, and Silver is growing into a man who might just be his undoing.

* * *

IV. MERCURY

There are times when even the hardiest sailor can misjudge the clouds, the wind or the sea. Once, years ago, Flint had been swimming near the shore and found himself taken by a current he hadn’t noticed. The water had been clear and shining, and yet darkness must have lurked beneath it. It was rare for Flint to feel panic after the loss of Thomas – anger, exhilaration and apprehension were emotions he still met with – but true panic was something you only felt when you were being thrust on a course you couldn’t control. Men, Flint knew how to navigate. But he could not argue with a tide determined to dash him against the rocks, or strand him far from a safe harbour.

Here is the dangerous part; Flint cannot see how deep the waters go behind Silver’s eyes.

The days stretch into torturous hours, torturous minutes, and torturous seconds. The worst part of this is that Flint is made to sit and do naught but think. There is no bargaining with the forces of sea and sky. No action Flint can take but to wait, as the hunger and thirst inside him makes his spit grow rancid and his head spin whenever he has to move from his bed.

Flint does not feel panic, even when his own calculations inform him the chance of their survival is now almost impossible.

When he sees Miranda at the end of the gun, he wonders if this is truly his end – slowly drawn out by his own pride, rather than at the sharp end of a sword. Was his fate merely to sow the destruction of those he loved for naught? Was this the punishment he received for being responsible for Thomas and Miranda’s deaths? 

But still he does not panic – until Silver tells him that he has stolen the gold from under him, and Flint sees that he has lost any ability to control or predict this man. It is not Flint’s own ability to judge people, he is sure – it is that Silver is not a person. He is nature itself, made flesh, chaos wearing the skin of a man come to wreck the plans and ships of men like Flint. 

Silver offers his solution; begs Flint to see him as an equal, as though he is a petulant child asking for a father’s approval. Flint wishes it were so simple, and yet he _cannot_ trust that this is not merely another carefully sewn costume for Silver’s manipulations.

“Without this crew,” his quartermaster says, self-pityingly, “All I am is an invalid.”

That is a lie, whether Silver knows it or not. He has just admitted to outplaying Flint, a feat few have ever managed.

Silver offers him the idea of a partnership, and it is sacrilege. He has only two partnerships like this in his life, and so the comparison is forced upon him. Images come unbidden into Flint’s head – even as he is repulsed by the muddying of their memory, his mind supplies visions of Silver fucking him.

It is only a moment, and it passes. The instinctual revulsion Flint feels is enough to forget the idea entirely – until.

Until.

The winds of fortune shift, and the men start cheering. And Flint looks across the ship’s deck, across the crowd of men and sees Silver – blood streaked on his face, hair matted, lips cracked and with skin sticking tight to his bones – and his heart skips for a moment, stutters, and the world stutters too. Flint feels himself once again being unfathomably pulled by a current he hadn’t noticed.

Silver had offered him a partnership, as the snake offered Eve an apple. A tankard full of poison may be swallowed gladly by a man about to die of thirst.

* * *

V. COBALT

They are captured on the Maroon Island, and the world turns on its head.

Gone is the would-be cook who stumbled his way onto the _Walrus._ Something new is sparkling in John Silver’s eyes – determination. Belief, in _Flint_ of all things. He calls out to Flint in the darkness, pulls him back from a great, chilling cliff. He stares into Flint’s eyes, tells him he has a purpose here still.

"Where are you?" Silver asks. _Come back to me,_ Flint hears him say.

Somewhere, he knows, Miranda is watching. _Look,_ she says. _Can you see it yet? You are not alone. There is someone to live for._

Silver kills Dufresne, and the echoes of a new man solidify with a roar of triumph. Silver has been remade, as James McGraw once was – but Silver was not thrust into this life. Silver walked willingly down the path of darkness, knowing what it was every step of the way. He douses himself with fire, steps down into the Underworld and meets Flint where he is. _Look,_ he seems to say. _I have bested every trial you have given me. Grant me a seat beside you on this throne, so that we may rule Hell together._

Silver becomes bold, confident. He falls in love with Flint’s own religion, worshipping at the feet of the Maroon Princess. It is almost a relief to track Silver’s eyes, his heart, his cock. This, this is something Flint can understand and reckon with. The ways of a man’s heart are simple, and in this Silver is no longer a mystery to him. He goes to Madi and whispers sweet nothings in her ear, spending days entwined in her. It is no secret, not even to the crew.

And yet–

Silver comes to him at night, under the cover of darkness. He and Flint seek each other out, souls grasping blindly, tentatively towards one another. Silver wants his twisted benediction, as though his captain can bless him with a hand on his shoulder, a quirked smile muffled by the dark. _Come,_ Flint wants to tell him. _Come here, and pray at my feet instead._

He is beautiful, and Flint is damned.

He can see the path before them, spreading out like ink spilled across a map. There is no calling it back into the bottle; they have come too far. Silver falls in love with Madi recklessly, and Flint sees the future suddenly in flashes of painted gold, crowns of bones resting upon their heads.

 _We would have been unstoppable,_ he thinks. _But they will be eternal._

Now that Flint has noticed Silver, he cannot stop. He is not Thomas – he is not the sun itself. He is worse, more terrible than that – a twisted god, a shard of the great moon hammered into a simulacrum of human form. His teeth flash white in the darkness, and Flint clings to it like a drowning man.

He had always known how to float, but now Silver is his reason to swim.

* * *

VI. LEAD

Flint knows how this story ends. Part of him has known it from the moment he laid eyes on John Silver, even if he did not know what he was seeing at the time. Yet still, he gives Silver his heart on a platter. He leads the horse to water, and Silver drinks. Silver asks _will you tell me?_ and Flint finds truth spilling over his lips. He tells him of Thomas, and of his love for the man. He tells him how England tore apart the most beautiful thing he had ever held.

 _Here I am,_ he declares. _What will you do with this heart, now that you have it?_

To Silver, he says, “You don’t need to say anything,” because his newly-beating heart has been given to Silver freely, without expectations of any return.

Silver remains inscrutable. He answers by knocking on the door of their relationship, skirting around it while sketching its outline. They are starting to make it out, and it looms, huge and incomprehensible to them both. It is beyond Miranda, or Madi, or even Thomas. It is not love, surely – it is not beautiful or delicate enough for that. It is a shot loaded into a cannon, and neither of them have the bravery to fire it. Cities would burn for them – countries would turn to dust under their feet. One touch, and the world would crumble. Even Flint is not brave enough to cross that veil, to see what lies on the other side.

But then the current changes, and Silver no longer meets his gaze with warm, cautious curiosity. There has been a misstep, somewhere; Flint has overplayed his hand. His definition of Silver slips through his fingers yet again.

He had trusted that Silver would understand him, see him in a way he’s allowed no-one else alive to see him. But his trust was in a phantom – Silver is a stranger to him, and his dangerous magnetism does not change that fact. Silver does not understand their righteous purpose to defeat civilisation. He still cares only for his own security.

The man opposite him wields his new power with crushing ease. He has teased their closeness out, and now he slaps Flint in the face with it. He tells Flint about Dobbs, and Flint sees the man opposite him has once again moved pieces in a game Flint has only just realised they were playing. Silver has given the contest between them a tether in reality, and the fate of their entire venture rests upon the outcome.

Flint wants to laugh. There are only two outcomes here; either one of them is wrong about the other, or they are more perfectly matched than Flint can comprehend.

When they had talked of Thomas, Flint’s heart had been light, unburdened of its years carrying Thomas’ name upon it. Now, stung with betrayal and uncertainty, the giddiness turns to leaden weight. It settles heavily in his stomach and gets caught in his throat.

He stares at Silver, and feels the ground shift uneasily between them.

_Who will we be now, if not partners to each other?_

So Flint tries to mend things. He takes Silver to train with him, and bares his neck naked to Silver’s sword. _Here is the way you can kill me,_ Flint says to him. _Here is how you survive, if one day you should find me gone._

Yet in those training sessions, something shifts again – Silver starts meeting his eyes with renewed warmth, and the intensity of his gazes leave heat pooling in Flint’s belly. His heart still aches, but the feeling is lighter now. His body dances around his friend’s, and it takes everything in him not to crush his lips against Silver’s, offer his fealty through touches and kisses instead of words.

 _You are my king now,_ he thinks, _but that does not mean I will let you bring our kingdom to ruin._

And then the feeling hits him again; that for all they have grown close, for all the love he bears the man, Silver is still a stranger.

 _Trust me,_ Flint says. _You know me, every part of me that matters. I want to know you too._

"It's just, you know my story," Flint says. And for some reason, I cannot figure-"

"I don't want you to know mine," Silver interrupts. He avoids his gaze, and the rejection hurts Flint in a way he did not know he could still be hurt. It lies in his lungs like a cold, something that catches his breath and haunts him at night. Silver has buried a sword heavy in his chest, and Flint does not have the strength to pull it out.

Then Silver sinks to the bottom of the sea, and all of it – the unanswered questions between them, the unanswered feelings in his heart, the unanswered gazes across ever-decreasing distances – all of it is washed away by the tide, until only one thing remains.

* * *

VII. ARSENIC

Flint’s love for Thomas had been pure, and so Flint had imagined that was all love could ever be. A thing like the grace of God, holy, incorruptible and self-evident. It was gold that never lost value to coin. It was as unstoppable and brilliant and eternal as the sun. 

But now, Flint knows love in a different form – something that isn’t pure at all. It’s covered in distrust and deception, a snake camouflaged in the grass. It is quiet, and stealthy, and unstoppable. An assassin, only noticed when its victim is already dead.

He feels it constricting around his chest when Silver is missing. He feels it around his neck when he talks to Madi and Billy and the men. He feels it piercing fangs into his heart when he sees Silver alive on the beach, and their eyes meet.

He feels his heart pump venom through his blood as Madi and Silver kiss, and the joy of his recovered love is usurped by a searing, melancholy grief. Silver was never his to mourn, and Flint was no longer the person that Silver was fighting a war for.

And yet, he embraces the taste of bitter poison on his tongue. He fought his feelings for Silver for months, only to have it crescendo endlessly, crashing over him at last like an inevitable wave. Flint is in love with him, truly and completely – he can only hope the tenor of his gaze is lost on Silver, attributed to their newfound comradery. If he is too gentle with Silver, if his hands linger a little too long on his arms and shoulders, if their heads sway too close together – they are small, insignificant things to take. Flint lost Thomas, and nearly lost Silver too. The gods will not strike him down for being a little selfish.

His heart aches, and aches, and he learns to live with it. He even learns to love Madi, in his own way, and take comfort in the knowledge she can make Silver happy in a way he cannot. They are not so different, Madi and he – she is a better version of him, a stronger one, unbroken by the years of rage and grief for a lover lost. She is radiantly noble, fighting for her people as only a true ruler can. He respects her, and knows that they want the same things for Nassau, for England. Knows that they see and love the same things in Silver, the same wit and complexity and hidden tenderness.

But the three of them are too unevenly balanced – one of them must fall for the other two to survive. Both Madi and Flint are holding true to their cause, but Silver oscillates between them like an unstable dinghy, tossed about by his moods and the words of other men whispering in his ear.

Flint watches mistrust breed behind his eyes, and his heart sinks. Yet so far fallen is Flint that he can do nothing but offer his compassion, and hope Silver sees that Flint will never betray him. Not now, not when his heart beats for the man, and his own poison runs in Flint’s veins. This loyalty beyond logic will be Flint’s undoing, he is sure, and still his damned heart will not let him move against his friend. And all of it works, for a time – despite the odds, Silver still trusts his bond with Flint more than the paranoia festering in his soul.

And then they lose to the Spanish at Nassau, and Madi dies on his watch, and Rackham abandons them, and it all goes to hell.

Flint finds him in the Captain’s quarters, hunched over the desk and clutching his head as though he is nursing a bad hangover. But his gaze is distant, and his voice slow and broken. Flint suddenly feels out of depth, a trespasser on their friendship, an intruder in Silver’s grief. He allows himself the briefest touch on Silver’s shoulder, the words in his heart fighting to be let out.

 _I love you,_ he thinks, _I’m sorry. I failed you. I love you, and I failed you. I’m sorry._

It is a mantra he is intimately familiar with.

So he watches, and folds his arms around his body to keep himself from touching Silver. Silver, who was never his to touch. Whose love lies dead and burned and gone. Flint longs to reach across that gap, to comfort him and say _I know what it is to feel as you do,_ but he doesn’t. He knows that once he starts touching Silver, his touches will not end until his betrayed all three of them – Thomas, Silver, and the dead princess who Silver had loved.

Yet even as Flint steps back, Silver lashes out and bites at his leashes. His anger is untamed, unreasonable. He storms about the Maroon camp, angering their allies and demanding his way, no matter the cost.

Flint seeks him out, attempting to tame the savage beast. He offers his heart to Silver once again.

“Trust me,” Flint begs, and bares his soul to Silver. _I love you. I will not let you down._

Silver abruptly looks away. He cannot hold Flint’s gaze. Flint knows then, in that moment, that Silver is already planning to betray him. Despite his best efforts, the toxin has spread, and Flint is helpless to stop it. All he can do now is clear the path for Silver to fail, hoping to bide time until his friend can find his way back to Flint’s side. Hoping against reason, against logic, that Silver will see a future with both of them in it.

But Flint knows how this story ends.

A gunshot sounds out in a forest, and Captain James Flint is struck down by the man he loves.


	2. Silver

VIII. SILVER

When John Silver had found himself on the _Walrus,_ fighting for survival against a fearsome pirate, he did not expect to fall in love.

Fairytales never went the way they were supposed to. 

It did not happen immediately, of course. Indeed, John Silver had never been in love before, and so he did not know what it was for a very long time. It started as it always does - in a steady thrum of magnetism, something that drew him to Flint like a moth to a flame.

Many people would later come to see Long John Silver as a brilliant man, but that wasn’t necessarily true – he was merely a great study of other people, and a great mimic of their successes. His art had been born out of the necessity of survival. As a child, he had learned to emulate the seductive charm of street thieves and whores. He studied them, plagiarised their movements down to the finest detail. He picked up people’s manners with the same ease and grace with which he picked pockets. Then he learned other, darker things. Unspeakable things. He fell so far that the only choice was to flee, and start again, with nothing inside of him but his selfish desire to survive and his talent for copying the survivors.

In Flint, he sees a man whose very thoughts he wants to read, to memorise and mimic until his mind works in the same magnificent way. Here is a person who is as dangerous as he is ingenious, whose very intellect makes him a feared enemy of the British Navy. Here is a person who is more god than man, terrifying and invigorating, who seems capable of splitting the seas until he has reached the impossible things he wants.

And so it is that despite his best and most selfish efforts, Silver finds himself saving Flint over and over again, ingratiating himself to the captain of the _Walrus_ through any means necessary.

To his surprise, however, the fear and awe Silver feels for Flint shifts into something else. One by one, Flint’s walls come crumbling down, and Silver begins to see through the man’s armour. He is not just a vengeful deity who sprung from the sea fully formed. He is a flawed mortal, and the more Silver sees his weaknesses, the more intrigued he becomes. Perhaps it is because the man is so sparing with his humanity that Silver begins to seek it out like water in a desert. His jokes are increasingly unfunny, but he itches to see a quirk at the corner of Flint’s lips. He finds himself glancing frequently across the lower deck at mealtimes, checking to see if Flint has heard his latest sprawling fiction.

He catches Flint’s eye just as he grins, once, and nothing can shake the elation in his heart for the rest of the day.

He gathers the other men around him like a blanket, earning their friendship. _See?_ he wants to say. _Your crew love me, and so you cannot dispose of me now, no matter how annoying you seem to find me._

It is like taming a dragon in the dark. The task is impossible, and Silver will surely be eaten, and yet the impossibility only makes him more determined to succeed.

Be that as it may – John Silver is still a selfish man, and his heart still beats for gold before all else. The Urca treasure is his first priority; everything else is just a means to an end, a part of his plan to gain fortune and freedom.

Losing his leg is an unexpected hitch in that plan.

The sands of time fall through the hourglass, and John Silver slowly grows into the role of one-legged quartermaster of the _Walrus._ He is not sure when his meshed facsimiles formed a new identity entirely – a protective guardian, an able tactician, a crewman seeking out his captain as an equal. A worthy challenge to Flint, a power capable of taming him. He takes a peculiar pride in knowing he is allowed into the captain’s quarters at any time, and abuses the privilege as often as he is able.

But Flint has just lost his lover – or whatever Miranda Barlow was to him – and he is crazed with grief. Silver tries valiantly to soothe the dragon as it spits fire across down the coast, terrorising the people of the colonies. Then, in the doldrums, he realises he has been going about this all wrong. All this time he has spent turning himself into Flint has not made him into a dragon tamer. It has made him, too, into a dragon.

They hunt for shark meat, and he bares his own sharp teeth. Silver shows Flint the selfish, ruthless hunger at the root of his soul, and Flint does not kill him for it.

Long John Silver is born in that moment, on a tiny dinghy in the middle of an empty sea.

 _I would kill for you,_ he thinks. _I_ will _kill for you._

* * *

Silver has spent his life moving across shifting sands, a seagull flitting from one shiny thing to the next.

Madi is the antithesis of everything he has ever been. She is entirely herself, royalty by birth and by unquestionable right. There has never been a moment of her life when she did not know who she was, or what her path in the world would be. She is a tree in the ground, rooted to her people and her purpose. She is a place Silver could call home, a place he could at last rest.

Silver wants her so terribly that it throws him off balance. Here is a treasure better than gold; a woman so self-possessed that he feels he could gain some of that self-possession merely by existing at her side. He gathers that confidence, and the passionate purpose gifted to him by Madi and Flint. He takes it all and forges it into a steel sword that kills Dufresne, into a cast iron rod that beats Dobbs, into a silver medal to wear upon his chest.

And he might have been happy with that, if it weren’t for the terrible complication that he finds himself unable to make the next jump. Madi is there, waiting for him with open arms, and yet something is holding him back.

Not something. Someone.

Flint looks at him with respect now, and suddenly his gazes are warmer. His eyes linger, his mouth twists up more often, and they talk as true equals – as partners. Something has changed in the air between them. Silver finds himself drawn inexorably closer to Flint even as the little thief inside him screams to take his prize and run. His hand is still in Flint’s pocket, frozen, and he wants… he wants…

Flint tells him about Thomas Hamilton, and Silver realises quite abruptly what he wants.

_Oh, fuck._

“I don’t know what to say,” Silver says, because he doesn’t, and he needs time to work out how to proceed from here. The dragon has been tamed, and Silver has no idea how to live in a world that has shifted so dramatically. His newly discovered attraction to Flint is a further distraction to it all.

He cannot go down this path – they cannot go down this path. It would be too all-consuming, a rutting of fire and scales and claws.

If Flint even wanted him. He seems _intrigued_ by Silver, but he speaks of Thomas as a man speaks of God, an irreplaceable and all-encompassing love. Silver could never live up to that. It would be a fool’s errand to try. They are better like this, as partners who can work together to bend the world to their will, instead burning it down around them.

The same sort of partners that always die at Flint’s side.

But Flint has made a mistake – he has given Silver unspeakable power over him, power no other man alive possesses. And Silver has learned from more than just Flint – is feared as Flint is feared, but is also loved as Billy is loved, respected as Madi is respected. In this moment, Silver realises he has surpassed his teacher. And if Flint’s curse drags them down, it will not be Silver who sinks to the bottom.

“I’ve come to find a great deal of respect for you… perhaps even friendship,” Silver says, every word chosen with delicate care. “Which is why I find myself unnerved by the thought… that I will be the end of you.”

 _Does he know?_ Silver thinks. _Does he realise?_

He sees a flash of indignation across the other man’s face, and knows that in this, Flint is oblivious. Flint is exposed, and emotional vulnerability has cut cleanly through his reason. He has lost their little game; forfeited it to Silver. Flint snarls at him as Silver lays out his plan, and Silver feels a new emotion for the beast he has tamed – he feels pity.

He will not make the mistakes of Flint’s previous allies, will not let himself be drawn into collateral because of blind affection. He has Madi now; it is time to cast off his admiration for Flint and make his own plans for the future.

He does not know why the thought makes his heart ache.

* * *

They win the battle, but they have not yet won the war.

Days pass by, and Silver grows reckless. He is still tethered to Flint, despite himself – their bond pulls at him, intoxicating and heady with unfulfilled potential. He fights it with all his might, seeking out Madi and pushing his body into hers.

 _See?_ he thinks. _I can outrun this. I have Madi now._

But Madi is even wiser than she seems, and she sees him in a way Flint has never been able to.

They are bathing naked in the lamplight one night, and Silver thinks of Flint. He thinks of his wicked smile in the darkness, across a campfire, the warmth in his eyes. His heart tugs at him.

“Where have you gone?” Madi asks. Silver startles – he had thought she was asleep.

“Merely contemplating our past, and our futures,” Silver says. She frowns at him.

“You were thinking of Flint,” she says, and the accusation in her voice is that of a jilted lover. It is unwarranted; he has barely spoken to Flint after the battle, avoiding him in a way that he knows Flint must have noticed. His attraction to Flint is something irrelevant, something he is in the process of starving to death.

But Madi sees him. She sees the threads that still bind the two men together, and she seeks to free Silver from their hold. She says as much, often. She does not trust Flint, nor his claim over Silver, a claim whose motives she cannot divine. She knows that Silver is caught between them, the woman he admires and the man he cannot leave. The life he wants to have, and the life that needs him.

“You love him,” she says, and he cannot tell if she means as a friend, or as an idea. “It will ruin you.”

He does not deny it. Flint has been his Captain, but Madi is his Queen. She knows Silver better than he knows himself.

“I will kill him first,” Silver replies, and she knows it to be a lie.

* * *

After a week it seems Flint can stand no more.

“Come with me,” he says, and his gaze is heavy. Silver makes the mistake of meeting his eyes, and he is at once exhausted from resisting the current. It submerges him, and he is lost to it.

He goes.

They climb the high cliffs of the island, and Silver begins to wonder if it is a punishment for his inattention. But then Flint turns to him, and says, “I cannot do it without you.”

It is not a punishment. It is a plea.

Flint gives him a sword, and takes up his own. Silver’s mind, like his body, struggles to keep up.

“You’re not concerned about this?”

Flint looks at him with a smile upon his eyes and lips, like he knows something Silver does not. “Concerned?”

“Well, you say you’ll be teaching me to fight. But if every man fights differently, seems to me what you’ll really be teaching me is how to defeat you.”

Flint’s smile widens with approval, and Silver suddenly understands.

 _I trust this thing between us,_ Flint’s smile says. _Are you so afraid of it?_

 _Afraid?_ Silver thinks, watching Flint warily. _I’m fucking terrified._

So when Flint asks him to bare his soul, Silver runs, and runs, until he cannot run anymore.

_I cannot explain who I am, because everything I am has been cobbled together from you, and from Madi, and from a line of evil men who now are dead and gone. I have changed my skin so many times that there is nothing at the core of me but ruthless, selfish pragmatism. I am a creature of chaos, and lies, and random, unpredictable circumstance. I am not you, nor am I Madi, and I do not wish to shatter the illusion I have cast of being worthy of either._

“You know of me all I can bear to be known,” Silver says. “All that is relevant to be known. That is to say, you have my genuine friendship and loyalty. Can that be enough and there still be trust between us?”

 _I cannot explain who I am,_ Silver thinks, _because you will see how my story was wrought by your hands, sculpted in your image. And when you understand that, I will never be able to outplay you again._

When Madi asks what they are doing up on those cliffs, Silver doesn’t bother to lie.

“No matter how hard you train, you will never defeat a swordsman like him,” she says cuttingly. “He is luring you into a false sense of security, and when it suits him, he will spring the trap that leads to your demise. You think you have him beaten, but he is beating you.”

Madi is his Queen, but he is Flint’s King. She does not know Flint – only he does. Only he sees the softness behind his eyes, the flash of courage and fear when their heads tilt too close together.

“Can’t you see it? It isn’t utility that’s behind his investment in me… nor necessity, nor dependency. I understand you fear a false motive. But this much is clear to me now. I have earned his respect. After all the tragedies that man has suffered – the loss of Thomas, the events of Charles Town – I have earned his trust. I have his true friendship. And so, he is going to have mine.”

“Friendship?” Madi laughs. “You both keep calling it that, and yet it is like no friendship that I have ever seen.”

“I know,” Silver says, and finds he cannot explain any more to her, as much as he cannot explain it to himself. That the strings tied to him are no longer hers to cut; that they form a lifeline that cannot be untangled from around his soul.

He belongs to Flint now as much as Flint belongs to him. Although Silver does not believe in a divine hand guiding his path, there is some meaning, some relevance in that.

* * *

Silver knows how this story ends. He has known it since he first saw the blood on Flint’s face, has known it from the moment he steps foot upon the _Walrus._ Pirates are a dying race, and their struggle is one that ends in tragedy. Their resistance will fall. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then in the next month, or the next year, or ten years from now. Their cause is doomed against the looming might of civilisation.

No, that is not true. Nothing is eternal. Not Nassau, nor the gold, nor the legend of Long John Silver. Someday, even England will be buried in the same grave as the rest of them. But in their lifetime, England will win – and Silver needs to avert catastrophe.

For this, Silver will not need the skills he learned from others. He can use the things at the heart of him, the things he has had from the start: He knows how to lie. He knows how to survive. And he knows how to be utterly, utterly selfish.

He sits on a beach, slowly drying out in the blazing sun, and plans take shape in his mind. Plans to ensure that at the end of all this, he will get what he wants.

When Max tells him of the plantation, and he realises Hamilton might be alive, he seizes a quill and pens a letter. After all, Silver knows how this story ends.

And so he rewrites the ending.

* * *

He tells Flint that he loves Madi, because he does. He tells her that he would trade the unwinnable war for her, because he would. He tells him that Thomas Hamilton might still be alive, because it could well be true.

“It is some kind of hell to be forced to choose one irreplaceable thing over another,” Silver says to him, and hopes one day Flint will understand the choice he made.

He sows the seeds of doubt around their feet, waiting for the weed to take root and grow between them. But Flint – Flint looks at him, and his voice is soft.

“The closer we get to the end of this journey, the more the contradictions will accumulate, confusing issues we once thought were clear.”

Silver stares at him.

“I suppose the good news is that’s how we’ll know we’re finally getting somewhere interesting,” Flint says, and his eyes spark with that same softness, that same heady mix of courage and fear.

Something more than mere attraction is blooming in Silver’s chest, and it chokes him. Flint has planted his own seeds some time ago, without his permission, and they have finally flowered. And nothing, nothing will make those flowers wilt – not Billy Bones, not Israel Hands, not even Flint himself.

Then Madi dies, and he realises exactly how much their war is going to take from him.

* * *

When Flint shoots down Dooley for raising a gun towards Silver, the fog begins to clear around the only unknowable part of him that remains.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _Flint has chosen me too_. The man who cheated death would walk into its arms for him, so long as Silver would live.

Unless-

Unless Flint believes so strongly in the war that he would kill himself before letting the commander of his army walk away.

So they fight, and the _Walrus_ crumbles. And then, when they have rescued Madi and avenged their ship, Silver decides it is finally time for all of it to end.

“I don’t care,” he says, and if he were with Madi, she would see the lie. If he were with Madi, she would see how he is breaking apart with love and selflessness in the greatest, most selfish act of his life.

“You will,” Flint says, defeated. “Someday, you will. Someday, even if you can persuade her to keep you, she'll no longer be enough. And the comfort will grow stale. And casting about in the dark for some proof that you mattered and finding none, you'll know that you gave it away in this moment on this island.”

 _I know,_ he thinks. _You fool, I knew all this before you did, and still I stand here._

“This is not what I wanted,” he says. _I wanted a life with her,_ he thinks. _It would have been easy, and sweet, and our days would have been long and filled with laughter._ “But I will stand here with you for an hour, a day, a year while you find a way to accept this outcome so that we might leave here together.”

 _I love you just as you love me,_ he thinks, and the force of the feeling is so strong that he does not know how it took him this long to see it. _And I will protect you, even if it is the end of us._

He points the gun at Flint, and waits.

* * *

In time, what happened to Captain Flint will not matter. He is cast out of the record, his name never again spoken with the same fear and reverence as Rackham, or Silver, or even Billy Bones. Captain Flint’s name disappears in history, an echo in a story that nobody remembers the truth of.

Years after the pirates, far from Nassau, in a tavern by the sea, a man drunkenly shouts over a table of his new friends.

“I was there!” he shouts. “I heard the gun meself. Silver shot Flint straight in the heart, and left him for dead.”

“Naw,” another man replies. “I heard he fled. Stole the treasure and set up somewhere in Savannah with his missus. Pirates had no honour, that much is well known.”

“I heard he went down with the _Walrus_!” a woman yells over the top of their table. Soon, the whole place is arguing back and forth over the fate of Captain Flint and the Pirate King, Long John Silver.

In the shadowed corner of the tavern, a man with greying hair laughs. Nobody pays him any mind.

* * *

There are three versions of this story.

The first is well known to the world, elegant in its simplicity. Long John Silver and Captain Flint walked into a forest, and only Long John Silver walked back out.

A story of betrayal between two friends over a woman, over gold, over power. It is a simple story, one that any fool can understand.

The second is the version that he tells Madi, the lies sliding from his mouth like a snake into water. It is a fairytale ending; He sent James McGraw to Savannah. McGraw is happy, and he himself saw him reunited with his long-lost love. All is well.

After years of spinning tales, it should not surprise him that the act is effortless. But it does. The love he feels for her is passionate, and strong, and real – but Flint was right. She is not enough.

Still, Madi knows him in a way Flint never has, and so she sees the betrayal upon his lips. She sees how he has ruined her entire life’s purpose so that he might preserve the woman he loves.

He tells her a lie, and his heart breaks to do it.

“I don't believe you,” she says. “I don't believe this.”

She knows him better than he knows himself.

And the lie might have been a small thing between them, if she did not know him. If she did not see, with a mind as sharp as his own, that he has planned this for a long time, without her knowledge or consent. She weeps, and weeps, and Silver knows that part of her is lost to him forever.

“I will stay,” he says, the words echoing on his lips. “And I will wait. A day, a month, a year – forever – in the hopes that you will understand why I did what I did.”

 _I loved you as you loved me,_ he thinks. _And I protected you, even though I knew it would be the end of us._

She never kisses him again. But one day, she comes to him atop the cliff where he and Flint once stood, looking out towards Nassau. She comes to him, and tells him that she understands.

* * *

The third version might be the truth, or it might not be. As Rackham would say, the truth matters less and less these days.

The third version is this: Long John Silver and Captain Flint went into a forest, and only Long John Silver returned. Long John Silver sent a man to Savannah, and that man never came back.

The third version is this.

“I will stand here,” Silver says, “with you, for an hour, a day, a year, while you find a way to accept this outcome so that we might leave here together. For if not… then I must end this another way.”

Silver’s gun is pointed at Flint’s heart. His hand trembles.

Flint takes some time to speak, and when he does, his voice is as unsteady as Silver’s hand.

“Kill me, then,” Flint says, and it makes Silver’s chest ache to think Flint imagines him capable of such a thing.

_I have played my role too well._

“But I will not give you the treasure,” Flint continues. “I will not give you anything, because you have just taken everything from me.”

“No,” Silver replies, resigned. “I knew you would not forfeit the cache. I knew you would not accept defeat, and that is why I am giving your treasure back to you.”

Flint blinks, completely thrown.

“When I was in Nassau, I heard rumours of a place where men imprisoned in England are sent to work,” Silver murmurs, his voice breaking. “I sent Tom Morgan to an estate outside Savannah. I had him ask after Thomas Hamilton, in the hopes that he might have survived.”

The forest is deadly silent.

“And?” Flint asks. There is the barest hint of hope in his flat voice, more dangerous than any threat the man has ever made.

Silver blinks, and tears are loosened from his eyes, running down his cheeks. “I do not know,” he whispers, not breaking eye contact with Flint. “He might still live. The man in charge would not say. He told Morgan that when the men are taken to reform, they are given new names, and their old lives are washed away. He did not want anyone to disturb that peace, whether they were from the Empire or the seas.”

“Why do this?” Flint asks, his voice tightly wound with confusion. “You never knew him.”

“But I know _you_ ,” Silver says, and he puts all the unspoken things between them into those four words.

_I know you. I know your war, and your heart, and I know that all of this ends in violence and blood and fire. I know that there is nothing waiting for you at the end of this but death._

Flint studies him with those clever eyes, and finally sees who Silver is – who Silver has always been.

“Jack Rackham has reached a deal with the Guthries,” Silver says. “On the condition of your death. The war is over, and they will hang the body of Captain James Flint above the entrance to their new world.”

Flint swears. “That fucking – how many of them? How many of them will turn for this?”

“Without you?” Silver says. “Without me? Almost all of them. Madi will take it about as well as you are – but as it turns out, living a life of peaceful stability is an enticing prospect to a kingdom of fugitives.”

“Without you?” Flint’s eyes narrow.

Silver almost laughs. “You always calculated for your own demise, thinking your war would go on under the rule of the Pirate King and a Queen of Maroons.” He shakes his head. “I won’t let her die for a war that is unwinnable.”

“It is unwinnable because at this moment you are choosing to lose,” Flint snarls.

“No,” Silver says, shaking his head. “It is unwinnable. Perhaps in twenty years, perhaps in fifty. Perhaps in two hundred years, or two thousand. But fighting a war against authority itself – we cannot win against them all. What happens when England and Spain and France and the rest of civilisation allies together against us? Do you really think we have the means to hold them all off?”

“Yes,” Flint says, but Silver can hear the doubt in his voice, even if Flint cannot.

“So,” Silver says. “You can come back with me, and the Guthries will receive your head with the help of the dozen or so men who stand at the bottom of this hill charged by Rackham with your demise. Or _Flint_ can leave with me, and whatever is left can stay here to meet the future. Let the pirate die here, and now, and never return. Let James McGraw travel to Savannah, and seek out his lost love in the fields of Elysium.”

Flint looks as though he has been struck by lightning, wide-eyed and staring at Silver.

“I will not give up this war for an impossible dream,” he says, his voice ringing with finality.

“It is no more an impossible dream than your war,” Silver replies. “But I knew you would say that.”

He tucks his crutch under his arm, and takes a thin length of chain from his pocket. He throws it at the ground in front of Flint.

“Bind your feet.”

“What?” Flint says, outraged.

“Bind them,” Silver repeats, and shakes the gun at Flint. “I will not have you threaten my departure from this cursed place.”

As Flint’s face turns to fury, he lightly increases pressure on the trigger of the pistol. It creaks, loud enough for both of them to hear.

Flint sinks to the ground and picks up the chain. The iron whines angrily with rust as he winds the chain around his leather boots.

Silver keeps talking.

“By the time I send a ship to retrieve you and take you to Savannah, it will be too late to change anything. Captain Flint will be branded a deserter. The winds will have already shifted, and the Maroons and pirates will have settled into a new peace.”

“Savannah,” Flint says, and his voice is filled with wistful despair and damned hope. His hands fall from the chains, their task complete.

Silver leans down and tugs at them, making sure Flint has not cheated him again. His touches are brief and perfunctory. He ties another complicated knot just in case – a knot he learned upon the _Walrus._ Finally, he takes out a lock from his pocket, and snaps it on to seal Flint’s fate.

Silver picks up his crutch and rises again, leaving Flint broken on the ground. He looks down on the man he once thought of as a god, and finds no comfort in finally possessing the power he had once lusted after so desperately.

“Rackham will not be pleased if you leave without me,” Flint says bitterly. He doesn’t look at Silver as he says it, and in that moment, Silver knows he has won.

“Rackham and I discussed it,” Silver retorts. “He knows what it is to love someone so much that you must leave them behind in order to ensure their survival.”

Flint freezes.

“What?”

_Too late, my friend._

“You didn’t know?” Silver says, smiling. He turns and leaves, hopping on his crutch with swift and practiced ease.

_Pain is an exceptional tutor._

He hears Flint stumbling after him, the chains clinking in distress.

“Silver – wait. Sil- _John._ ”

Silver turns back, and fires a warning shot right past Flint’s head. A flock of birds in a tree nearby squawk with alarm, and flutter away from their perch.

“Do not follow me, James,” Silver whispers. “Or I will kill you.”

“No you won’t,” the other man says, and his eyes are alive with more courage now than fear.

Silver chuckles humourlessly, and shakes his head. “No, I won’t. But I might leave you crippled, bleeding out into the dirt. Don’t test me on that.”

Silver leaves, and does not look back.

* * *

What happened to Captain Flint does not matter, but years later his story still causes a great excitement in the tavern by the sea. People shout over each other with tales of the legendary pirates who once ruled the Bahamas, pirates who defied the gods themselves.

The man in the corner has finished his rum, and his friend returns to the table.

“Your love for that stuff is going to kill you,” the other man says, clumsily sliding back into his seat. In spite of his words, however, he has brought back another full demijohn with him. Part of the drink has spilled on his long, tangled beard, but he pays it no mind.

“I hope you’re enjoying this, by the way,” the first man says, shaking his head. “Have you heard the new one? Apparently, Flint was taken by a great sea monster, who rose out of the sea and smashed the _Walrus_ with its tentacles.”

“Woodes Rogers _was_ an ugly bastard, from what I hear.” His friend grins. His face is scarred, and wrinkled from years in the sun. “My favourite is the one which posits Flint as powerful demon, cursed to wander the seas. They say he had Long John Silver whipped for his betrayal, and thrown into Tartarus to lie chained for all eternity.”

“ _They_ say, do they?”

“Well.” The bearded man throws him an insolent smirk. “You know I can never resist adding in my own fantasies when these conversations come up.”

The two men take their drink, and after a time they leave the tavern. The one with a long beard leans into the other, who wraps a well-muscled arm around his friend’s shoulder in support.

“Have I mentioned,” the bearded man says, “That I _adore_ being drunk? Your chest is so _warm,_ my dear.”

The man’s voice rumbles against the ear pressed close to his heart. “You always liked causing a scene.”

“Mm,” his friend replies happily. “Will you carry me home?”

The other man shakes his head with fond amusement. “What makes you think I will say yes to you this time, when I have not the last thousand times you’ve asked?”

“Old streak of hopeless idealism,” the bearded man retorts. “Can’t quite knock it out of me.”

His companion looks up at the sky, and tracks the stars and clouds with practiced ease. “A storm is coming. We have two good horses, and a long way to travel.”

The bearded man rolls his eyes. “And to think, you were once such a romantic.”

They ride into the darkness together, and leave no trace behind. In the end, nobody remembers who they were, or whether or not they were even there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A partial sequel [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855030).


End file.
